30 December 2007

Where Crushed Red Pepper Comes From


Just before the first frost we pulled up our remaining hot pepper plants so we could dry them out. They didn't seem to be changing much at first, but as soon as we turned the heat on in the house they shriveled up real quick. Now the peppers are at the point where they shatter when they fall on the floor, so yesterday Kelly started harvesting the dry ones. He's gotten about a quart so far, and there is probably another quart left on the plants. He plans to mush them up with a mortar and pestle to make extra spicy pepper flakes.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Cool! I had thought to do a similar thing, but had intended to use a blade type coffee grinder rather than a pestel. Good luck!

Meg said...

Rob, I think that would work just as well. They're so fragile when they dry out that it doesn't take much of anything to smash them up. We have a Magic Bullet (as seen on TV!), which is basically a glorified coffee grinder, and we were also thinking of using that.

It's good to hear from you–we love your blog. Thanks for stopping by!

Kylee Baumle said...

I grew an ornamental chili pepper this year called 'Chilly'. It looked just like yours here when it dried. Smelled like an edible pepper, but I wasn't sure if it was or not. I grew them because they were so cool looking!

Meg said...

Kylee, I think these were tobasco peppers, though they look just like some ornamental variety I grew years ago. I read that ornamental peppers are just as edible as any others, though I never tried because I can't stand spicy stuff. Kelly is the only pepper eater in this house.